Tourism and Peripherality: Perspectives from Asia and the South Pacific

Abstract

This paper argues that effective policy-making for peripheral regions requires a greater understanding of the nature and structure of the linkages between cores and peripheries. First, the literature is reviewed and two distinctive approaches to tourism and peripherality are outlined, the attributes-based and the structural. The attributes-based approach focuses on the conditions and characteristics of the regions themselves, in this context on their attributes as tourist destinations. The structural approach emphasises the functional relationships between focal peripheral regions and other areas, especially cores. This latter approach is then developed with reference to the examples of Sarawak and Samoa. Core-periphery relationships are examined there at a range of spatial scales with regard to marketing and distribution channels, air transport and planning. Finally, some policy implications are presented and some parallels with the Nordic situation are offered.